Read this true short story about this fine man, Andy and his Heroic Dog, Shamus:
Part 1-“Shamus’s warning saved andy from a fire in their home”
Part 2 - “Shamus and Andy: Final decisions”
Carmella
I first laid eyes on Carmella in June, 2010. She had been abandoned at a local animal shelter along with her 8 puppies. Her puppies were sent to Colorado for adoption, but Carmella was scheduled for euthanasia. She was literally a walking skeleton, had a dislocated hip and part of her one ear was torn off. When she arrived at my house, she was very depressed and hung her head and refused treats. This went on for 3 days. On the 4th day, her head lifted and she took a treat and started eating. Her tail began to wag and I believe she realized she was safe.
It took months of good nutrition before she could be spayed and her hip problem diagnosed. Carmella had hip surgery and had a one month recovery. She finally realized that she could walk on all fours!!! After her surgery, she blossomed. She was such a happy dog and always had a toy or bone in her mouth. She even has a small plastic swimming pool - she loves the water.
I was determined to find the perfect home for Carmella and I must say I was getting discouraged as no one was the right fit for her. Then, in December, Carmella's new mom spotted her and it was love at first sight! I was elated and held my breath as she still had to pass the test - there were 2 cats living in the house. She passed with flying colors and she is in her new loving home. I could not have hand picked the new owner any better.
 
Claire Leonard, PAWS Board
Gabby
Dear PAWS,
my name is Gabby. I’m about a year old, and was homeless and hopeless, but all that’s changed – thanks to friends of PAWS.
A nice lady noticed me hanging out in Bernalillo; skinny, coat a mess and hungry. She started putting out food. I was leery at first, but soon I let her pet me. It took a few weeks before I truly trusted her.
When it got really cold, the nice lady took me to the house of a friend to stay warm. I’d never been in a house, but it was warm, I got combed and had a comfy bed.
The nice lady returned and took me to a veterinarian to be spayed, get all my shots and get micro-chipped.
One day a super lady named Ann came to visit me…I immediately liked something about her. She took me home with her! Anne wanted me to be a barn cat because she already had a house cat named Smoky, but Ann wanted a kitty that was
affectionate and Smoky (my new step sister is sort of a snob.) Time to compromise a bit and tolerate Smoky because I wanted Ann and her family to keep me. I was so good that I never spent one night in the barn!!! I sleep with my mom and new dad every night and even one of the house dogs!! Dreams do come true, hope can be fulfilled, and having a home is awesome!
Kind friends at PAWS and ANN SAVED MY LIFE. I just hope many others will see the work PAWS does in rescuing hopeless and homeless animals. The mission PAWS has in educating others on the importance of spay and neuter is a passion all humans should share.
Thank you – ALL OF YOU FOR CARING. I LOVE YOU
Gabby
Milagro
This past September, 2010, lost, homeless, abused and abandoned pretty much tell the last stories of so many dogs and cats here in northern New Mexico; but now and then miracles indeed happen.
For weeks, Alicia Gyetvai a kind and alert woman saw a young dog wandering about in Eldorado’s Agora Shopping Center. A number of times the good-hearted woman attempted to follow the Red Heeler who usually ran into the busy road and just slipped away.
A couple of weeks went by and the kind lady happened to look out her studio window just when the rib-skinny dog was passing by; headed it seemed toward a road culvert.
Gathering towels for bedding and food, she placed them in the culvert hoping the skinny stray would find them.
Calls went out to Animal Control, but it is unknown if they responded? But a number of people advised of the dog’s plight, left food in the culvert.
After several more weeks Jane Carson, the guiding light and founder of PAWS was appraised of the Red Heeler situation by Barbara Baca ,who expressed interested in possibly adopting Skinny Red if the dog could be captured and socialized.
Once set on a course, Jane Carson wastes no time, she began leaving roast beef on Friday and Saturday nights while obtaining a “safe trap” from Santa Fe County Animal Control. On a Sunday night, Jane hauled the trap to one entrance of the culvert and baited the trap with more roast beef (it is not known if she included Yorkshire Pudding).
Nonetheless, hardly twenty minutes elapsed before Skinny Red was safely captured in the cage.
Enter our next hero and heroine; Ed and Barbara Baca. On their way to church that Sunday, they stopped by at Jane’s invitation to see the now rescued dog. Understandably frightened and timid, the dog showed friendliness to the Baca’s; probably sensing that these people would do him no harm? The dog, once lost, was now really found, and appropriately re-named Milagro, as the new Baca family member.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays
Michael Pschorr
Ewa
This past September, 2008, a little stray cat appeared on my doorstep. He was literally starving to death and the stench that came from him told me that he was terribly ill. He was frightened and hungry, but allowed me to immediately start feeding him. I knew I had to get him to my Vet if there was going to be any chance of saving him. A friend and I captured him, though one could hardly call it a capture. It was more of a concession of a tired little soul. We crated him in soft bedding for the night and he hardly moved. I was afraid he wouldn’t survive until morning.
I checked on him throughout the night and though motionless, he was still breathing. Early in the morning, I though that life was just about over for this little guy. I pulled his limp body from the crate, wrapped him in a towel and held him close. He found comfort in my arms, and his eyes were fixed on a hummingbird feeder above us. Perhaps those two things were instrumental in his “hanging on”.
  
The Vet took on look at him and said, “This is about the most emaciated cat I have ever seen; he is really going to have to WANT to live.” Doc gave him a shot of penicillin and another to break his fever. He sent me home with kitten food (for added protein and fast weight gain) and a bottle of antibiotics but very little hope that I would be able to pull this little fellow through.
I fed him all he wanted, gave him his medication 3 times a day and loved him. I named him “Ewa”, meaning “life or “to live” in Hawaiian. I knew he would not just surrender to death. Ewa improved quickly. He was loving and social, Ewa enjoyed my dogs and sitting with me at the pond watching the fish. He tripled in weight in just 3 months and was learning how to play. He was ready to go in for neutering and vaccinations.
At the clinic, Ewa held onto me like a scared child; he curled in my arms and hid his head under my chin. I had him all snuggled in his favorite bed and wrapped in his favorite blanket. Before I let him go for his day of surgery, I made sure he knew just how much I loved him; he lied quietly and content in my arms trusting me completely and purring at full speed. I handed him to the Vet.
Before surgery, Ewa was tested for feline leukemia and unfortunately, he tested EXTREMELY positive, with very high titers of the virus. Feline leukemia is always fatal and he was already showing signs that the Vet could target. Ewa's days ahead would only mean agony for him. This virus is extremely contagious for other cats, and so, I was faced with making a very difficult decision. I asked that they wait for me to get back to the clinic so I could hold him. Ewa was euthanized and died peacefully in my arms.
My heart just aches with this loss but there is a bigger ache about the carelessness in not taking responsibility for these treasured gifts from God. This was a cat so endearing that even the Vet was especially moved and said, “Ewa is so special and so handsome, ‘this hurts’”.
Roxanne Smyth
Shamus
It all began some twenty years ago when I told the wizened little man selling plants at the farmers’ market that I was looking for something that would grow close to the ground and be happy in the shade under a maple tree. He looked at me, shifted around a little, rubbed his chin, and said, “It sounds like you need a dog.” I had a dog, actually. And, it turned out, that it was Andy who needed one.
We got to know Andy and his plants. Over time, I bought many of them for our yard. When my husband mowed a couple of them down and I sent him back for more, Andy cheerfully suggested he go home, plant the new ones, mow those down, and come back next Saturday for replacements. Andy got me involved with Tudor Hall (the home built by John Wilkes Booth’s family) and then we got to know his home and his amazing Christmas displays. He began decorating shortly after Labor Day and had a tree in every room—even the bathroom, where there really wasn’t space for another thing. He hung them upside down from the ceiling where space was really tight. He invited folks out to share this holiday domain, and year after year, his treasure trove of decorations and Christmas-themed music boxes expanded.
The first year that we went to Andy’s with some friends for the holiday visit, I said I would bring dinner if he would set the table for us. He agreed and when we got there, we found that he had set his table with his mother’s china, which he was using for the first time in the thirty-plus years since her death. This began a tradition we enjoyed each December for many years. Over time we learned that Andy had no relatives and incorporated him into holiday dinners in our home.
It was St. Patrick’s Day weekend in 2003 when I drove to my parents’ home in Penn Yan, in central New York State, to plan a party for their sixtieth wedding anniversary. There was a lot of old snow on the ground and it was very cold out. I got there shortly after Mom and Dad returned from a trip to town and discovered a black puppy sitting on their porch as if he lived there. No explanations, no tracks, just this little ink spot of a puppy about three months old. Mom and I gave him water while Dad discouraged our encouraging him to stick around, although he was quickly outvoted and the puppy certainly gave no sign of planning to go anywhere. It was a Friday evening and we headed out for my parents’ usual fish fry. It was dark out and cold, so we brought the puppy in, gave him food and drink, and tied him to a doorknob in the kitchen before we left. He was sitting there primly and greeted us happily when we returned.
The next day I called the local humane society and animal control officer. No one had reported a puppy missing. My Polish American mother was cooking corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day when she announced, “Well, he must be Shamus.” I remember this clearly because that weekend turned out to be the last time I spent with my mother before her slide into dementia and the nursing home. I called my husband, who assured me we did not need another dog. I took Shamus back to Maryland with me anyhow. I knew we would soon lose Maggie, our old black lab, and I thought a puppy might help Atticus, my Navajo border collie (who was absolutely sure Maggie was his mother), through that loss. Mom and Dad couldn’t handle a dog anymore, let alone a puppy, and I was not leaving Shamus unaccounted for. I took him to my vet, Dr. Cook and his stable of associates, for his shots. Dr. Cook, himself, happened to be in that evening and declared Shamus a black lab, despite a little spot of white on his chest and a white toe or two. And he told me I may as well start buying super-sized bags of dog food.
Shamus and I went faithfully to dog obedience school week after week. Well, I went and he came along for the ride. He was not interested in learning much, but he was always good company. Like most labs, there just was not an aggressive bone in his body and, even as he grew and grew, he was pretty sure he was a lap dog. He chewed the wooden knobs off my dresser during the months he slept beside my bed, so eventually he was relegated to sleeping in the garden room. He loved to eat, to play, to get walked, and just about anything else social. He loved everything except paying attention to the instructions imparted at doggie obedience school, where I surely absorbed more training than he did.
The last time I took Maggie to our place in West Virginia, where she so loved the creek when she could still get down to it, and the only time I had all three dogs with me out there, I watched them listen to coyotes howling first from one direction and then from a mountain on the other side of the cabin. Shamus’s head swiveled from one side to the other—back and forth as the howls resounded down the hill and poured onto our porch. Usually ready to respond to any dog they heard in the distance, the three of them apparently knew when they were out-howled because no one uttered a sound. Shamus got up and tucked himself between Maggie and Atticus like the baby of the family he was.
At Thanksgiving dinner that year, I noticed Shamus taking a real shine to Andy. Shamus hardly lacked attention, though he did have to share us with a farm cat we’d brought with us from Germany, a feral cat who had no intention of going back outdoors once she realized she could stay inside and did not have to earn a living, and Atticus, who, it turned out, grieving for months as he did for Maggie, was none too thrilled to have a frisky puppy in his face all the time. Andy no longer had a dog, and he was way out in the country all by himself. Shamus rested his head on Andy’s knee every chance he got. It got me thinking. Shamus and Andy. Nah—surely it was just the ring of those names from that old Amos and Andy show of my youth. But I called Andy and asked him what he thought about Shamus coming to live with him at Morningstar Nursery.
Bill and I delivered Shamus—with all his gear, a huge bag of food, and his certificate entitling him to go to obedience classes forever. As if. Andy was skeptical about Shamus’s name at first. He had a notion that a Shamus was somehow unscrupulous. It told him it was merely Irish for James, that my mother had picked the name, and how she spelled it. He nodded, having met my mother and accepting her assessment of the situation. Shamus and Andy settled in very nicely together, although I suspect Andy called him “Knucklehead” more often than by name. Shamus didn’t care as long as someone was around to feed him and he could sleep warm by the coal stove. The years went by. Andy, who had never married or had children, kidded about the dog we co-parented. I hauled a bag of kibble out now and then, occasionally borrowed Shamus long enough to give him a bath, and listened to Andy’s stories about Shamus’s gentle but “worthless peaceable ways,” which I happened to really like.
Once, when Andy was in the hospital for a few days, Shamus came back to stay with us. There used to be a Rottweiler in our neighborhood who terrorized us. I usually walked Atticus really late at night to avoid the creature, but darn if I didn’t miscalculate. With Atticus on one leash and Shamus on another, the Rottweiler hurtled itself out of the dark right at Atticus’s throat. Atticus was ready to go to war while I shone my flashlight in the big dog’s face and yelled plenty loud. Neighbors came out from across the street, and eventually the Rottweiler’s owner retrieved him. Meanwhile, Shamus, who had tucked himself up safely behind me while Atticus defended us all, came dancing out to see what new person was there to pet him. It did not seem to bode well for hero status. Indeed, Andy told stories of Shamus backing down when chipmunks skittered or rabbits hopped through the yard, and of his being totally intimated by the deer that it was supposedly Shamus’s job to keep out of Andy’s nursery plants.
The years went by—seven, eight. Then we got a call from Kris, Andy’s friend. Andy’s house had burned down and Andy was at Johns Hopkins in the Burn Unit. It was nighttime and Shamus, who slept downstairs and closer to the origin of the electrical fire, barked and awoke Andy, who fled his home and walked barefoot through the field to a neighbor’s. He called Shamus when he made his way downstairs, but there was no response by then and he could not see-- and Shamus weighed more than Andy could have lifted or carried if he’d been able to find him in the smoke. The local paper came out a couple of days later. My neighbor called, all upset. Was that my Shamus in the paper? And the Andy she knew from the market? Yes, it was, they were.
The paper carried the story for two weeks: “Man rescued, dog dies in fire,” “Harford man’s best friend, to the end,” “Dog’s warning saves man from fire in house in Street.” The Baltimore Sun picked up the story, and like the local paper, always referred to Shamus by name, which was surely his due.
Three weeks later, Andy is still at Johns Hopkins, although neither he nor Shamus actually suffered much in the way of actual burns. Apparently the fire got a strong start before Andy awoke; it was the smoke and soot that did the damage. Andy has finally been moved from ICU to a rehab unit, although he is still dependent on a respirator. Shamus’s remains are still at Dr. Cook’s waiting for Andy to get to the point where he can decide whether he wants him buried on his land or cremated. And Andy, who will be 80 in a couple weeks, has lost pretty much everything—the home he was born in and lived in every day until three weeks ago, all those Christmas trinkets, even his glasses… and his gentle and loving best friend.
Shamus and Andy: Final Decisions
To begin writing this I searched for a slip of paper with a name on it in my purse. Ever more tattered, for a month or more that paper surfaced now and then when I looked for something else. I would tuck it back into the depths because I was not ready yet. On the paper is written “Animal control officer Stacey Rawlins.” She is attached to the Humane Society and she is a woman whose job I do not envy. But it is time now to complete the story of Shamus and Andy, and Officer Rawlins is part of that. I can’t claim it is a happy tale, but, then again, in some ways it is.
If you read the first story about Shamus, you know about the fire that destroyed the home that Andy was born and lived in for nearly eighty years—forty-two of those alone, except for Shamus who joined him for the last eight and woke him during the night of the fire in time to get out. Shamus was not so lucky. The official story is that Shamus did get out, could not find Andy, and actually went back into the burning house in search of him. But we will never know exactly what happened.
Andy spent two months at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He had no family to visit him, and he certainly did not have a harem in the original sense of the word, but he had good friends. Andy did not want a lot of people around, incapacitated as he was, so Kris, Nancy, and Margie set up a rotation of visitors that, over time, caused one of the male nurses to hope he too would have “a harem like that” if he ever landed in the hospital. I’d known Kris for years, but had only heard about Nancy and Margie from Andy before all this. Jeannine was another close friend who became part of the circle of visitors as the days and weeks went on.
I took Andy a bouquet of balloons and another of daffodils for his eightieth birthday, and regularly spent an afternoon and evening shift with him. Most of the time, Andy could not talk. I would take a book to read, and one time I worked on a review I was writing while Andy dozed on and off. He’d wake up and I’d say, “Andy, how does this sound?” He’d listen, smile, roll his eyes, and shrug as if I was using a completely unfamiliar tongue but he wanted to humor me. Unfortunately, the smoke and soot from the fire left his aging lungs badly damaged. Every time the staff tried to wean him off the ventilator, he would soon gasp for breath and be in trouble. Andy was always very health conscious, did not smoke, and did not have an ounce of extra fat on his spare body.
Ask what he’d made for dinner and it was inevitably salmon and veggies. Somehow all that made it even sadder that it was smoke that caused him so much trouble and pain. Eventually the tube that sent air down to his lungs was replaced by a tracheotomy, a hole directly into his throat rather than the tube through his mouth. When that was capped, Andy could speak—although usually it was not long before he would need mechanical help with his breathing again. Over time, even when it was only a few minutes at a time, all of us all had meaningful talks with Andy. He knew Shamus was gone and that his home was a total loss. Occasionally we talked about where he would go after he left the hospital; he knew he would never be left alone to deal with whatever he faced when the time came, and he would have options. He never seemed to doubt that life would go on. But, too preoccupied with the present to worry about the future, he could not decide what to do about Shamus.
There were some good times, even in the hospital and in spite of all the losses. I happened to be there one of the early days that the physical therapist and speech therapist came together to work with Andy. He had his speaking cap on, so he could talk a little and even joke as they encouraged him to do what he could. The pretty young speech therapist asked him where he lived, while the physical therapist helped him exercise his arms and legs. He said “Street.” She responded with “What street?” Andy repeated “Street,” but by that time he needed air. They could deal with the issue of air, but both women looked confused and looked at me.
Andy rolled those eyes as only he could and gasped “Tell them.” I explained that he lived in the town of Street—not that there is really a discernible town. They had no idea there was such a place in Maryland. Later Andy, who hadn’t been out of a hospital bed in weeks, enjoyed kidding them about needing get out more. As I drove home, I thought about my words. I told the therapists that Andy lived in Street. I didn’t say “used to live” or “had lived;” I sounded like he still did. I wondered whether he ever would again.
It was Animal Control Officer Stacey Rawlins’ job to reclaim the body of any animal killed in a fire, and thus it was she who did that for Shamus. Andy’s friend Nancy, a real animal lover if ever there was one, then tracked her down, for which I sincerely thank her. Nancy explained her decades-long relationship with Dr. Cook, our legendary local veterinarian. Eventually she talked Officer Rawlins into releasing Shamus’s body for safekeeping at Dr. Cook’s, but it was no easy sell. Apparently the Humane Society and Animal Control folks keep a very sharp eye out for any hint of abuse, including death by fire. It’s sad to think about, but we were glad they do that. After Nancy won her case, she personally transported Shamus’s body to Dr. Cook’s until Andy could decide what to do.
We talked with Andy about burying Shamus on Andy’s property or having Dr. Cook cremate him. Weeks went by and Andy just could not decide and Dr. Cook, out of the goodness of his heart, neither charged nor pressured us. We, meanwhile, wanted to respect Andy’s wishes about Shamus. Perhaps after the fire, the notion of cremation was just too much for Andy. Maybe, since he felt as if he’d been put on hold at Hopkins and since Shamus was usually right there with him, it made some sense to leave him in a liminal state as well. We talked with Andy about burying Shamus on his land.
Some neighbors had offered to help Andy get a house trailer established near his old home site, but what if he didn’t get to live there again? What of Shamus then? He’d be all alone out there with nothing but a gaping ruin of a homestead. Of course, it wouldn’t matter to Shamus, but, yes, it mattered to Andy and to us. It was all too sad for words and it remained up in the air and uncomfortably unresolved.
Weeks went by and I watched Andy begin to slide away from regaining his health. It seemed that every time I saw him, he was a little weaker. When the physical therapist tried to get him to sit on the side of the bed and he sort of melted over sideways, I knew things were not looking good. Two days later, very early on Saturday morning, Andy’s heart simply stopped beating and all of the resuscitation that Johns Hopkins is so famous for could not do a thing. Nancy called me and we sobbed together on the phone. She and Kris would make the arrangements and call me back.
It happened that two days before that, Nancy had finally heard from Dr. Cook that a lot of time had gone by and it was time to do something about poor Shamus, who was still tucked up somewhere at the vet’s. Being a good sized black lab (Well, he was definitely a big dog, though we were never sure he was all lab.), Shamus probably took up more than his share of whatever space was used for such purposes. Nancy and I decided that we would have to decide for Andy. We knew Andy shied away from cremation, so we would bury Shamus. That was plan A.
I chuckle when I think how we pride ourselves on being independent women and each immediately volunteered our husbands and their shovels to help with the job. We settled on a time after work that evening. Then we set about deciding where. Andy had told Nancy to use the corn field because the soil would be looser there, but we nixed that idea immediately; we surely did not want Shamus being plowed up or under. Nancy suggested we bury him beneath the wonderful old Japanese maple in Andy’s yard. And a beautiful yard it was as time went by and spring came and first the daffodils and forsythia and then the azaleas bloomed all over it, despite the unsightly mess where the house had been.
I argued that the roots on that huge tree would never allow a hole large enough for a dog the size of Shamus. We agreed that we didn’t want to damage the tree-- or our husbands, for that matter. We decided on the edge of the foliage, which was presumably also that of the roots of the old maple, and away from the corn field on the side of the yard and house. I thought we were ready.
An hour later, Nancy called again: “We can’t do that.” “Why not?” I asked, feeling our stab at closure dissipate. “Because somebody will buy that land and bulldoze it for a new house and disturb him.” Good grief. “You’re right, Nancy. We can’t do it. Well, surely Dr. Cook will give us the weekend to figure this out.”
We had discussed having Shamus cremated and not telling Andy. We could easily inter his ashes under the big maple tree and then move them later if Andy ended up elsewhere. It was still not a bad plan B. Then Andy died the next morning and took with him all our qualms about having Dr. Cook go ahead with cremating Shamus.
Andy did not want a public viewing or wake, but those of us who were close to him needed a time to say goodbye. We arrived at the funeral home with a friend who was in town; Dave had been with us during the first years we went to Andy’s for our Christmas-time gathering and dinner. There were about a dozen of us there, including Nancy’s husband and mine, undoubtedly relieved that they had been spared digging a massive grave amidst century old tree roots for a dog who had already been dead for two months. Nancy told the group the story about Officer Rawlins and Dr. Cook, and even read a letter that Officer Rawlins sent for the occasion. Since Andy was Shamus’s surrogate father and I his mother, and given our years of “co-parenting” Andy’s “fur-child,” Nancy then handled the little box with Shamus’s ashes to me. I said a few words, which included forgiving Shamus for all those wooden knobs he’d chewed off my dresser in his youth and his total disregard for learning opportunities at doggie obedience class.
Then I tucked the box down into the half-open coffin as far as I could reach beside Andy’s legs. Andy always said he was forever tripping over “our” dog (who was on those occasions my darned dog), so why should things be different now? The next morning, as I sat beside Kris at the funeral service, and Nancy and Margie sat across the aisle with our husbands and the other pall bearers, we were all very glad that Shamus and Andy would be together forever. The funeral parlor director had blessed our plan, and we figured the priest didn’t really need to know. There might be issues about consecrated ground or something, but Nancy and I figured Shamus deserved and probably could use all the blessings he could get.
I was in charge of making a photo montage for the big reception after Andy’s funeral, which was also Shamus’s. (Not everyone present knew about Shamus being there, but those who did applauded the idea.) Pulling the pictures together, I was amazed to find how many images we had collected over the years of both Andy and Shamus. A few weeks later, I walked into a Christmas store with a friend (another Nancy) and thought automatically about what Andy would like, for I always took Andy a new ornament when we traveled. What ornament would be different than any of the many others he had on all those trees? Then I remembered, all over again, that there would be no more Christmases with Shamus and Andy.
I bought a small black lab ornament for our own tree and thought about how good it is to know Shamus and Andy are still together, as well as that they will not be forgotten there in that lovely churchyard. I like to imagine them arriving at the Pearly Gates together and wandering fields of flowers, with Shamus chasing butterflies (about the only creatures that did not intimidate him) and tripping Andy up every now and then.
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